In telecommunications and data networks, the need for scalability within a network infrastructure arises when the memory or processing capacity within one or more network nodes is no longer sufficient to cope with a growth in usage of the network node or nodes. In other words, it is often necessary to provide scalability in a monolithic or distributed system, by increasing the memory or processing capacity of the system, e.g. by adding a network node. A need for carrying out such a task in an easy and efficient manner exists.
The same need arises when a decrease in usage of a network node occurs. That is, it may be required to be able to easily and efficiently decrease the memory or processing capacity of a system, e.g. by removing a network node, in order to reduce the maintenance costs associated with the system.
Adding a node to expand the capacity of a distributed system or removing one to reduce the maintenance costs is often accompanied by a need for manually reconfiguring the central node in charge of distributing the load amongst the processing nodes, especially when the nodes do not present the same characteristics, in terms of processing or memory capacity.
It is therefore desirable to provide a method which solves or partially solve the above-mentioned problems of providing convenient scalability in a distributed system.